STRASBOURG — European Parliament President Roberta Metsola had the casting vote at a closed-door meeting that could entrench the European Parliament even more firmly in its Strasbourg home.
Metsola convened her 14 vice presidents on Monday to decide on an offer from the French government, revealed by POLITICO in May, to rent out a new office building to the Parliament for €700,000 per year.
After months of dithering about purchasing the building, the Parliament has been considering a May 3 offer from Paris, in which the French government would buy the so-called Osmose building — a state-of-the-art block that boasts 15,000m² of space, not far from the Parliament’s hemicycle in Strasbourg — and then lease it to the Parliament.
Paris described the offer as “advantageous” and the Parliament said it’s one-fifth the price it would have been on the open market at the time an assessment was carried out earlier this year.
It comes also as part of the French government’s effort to expand the EU Parliament’s footprint in the French city, which is the institution’s official home according to the EU’s treaties.
According to three people with knowledge of the meeting, who were granted anonymity to speak about the closed-door talks, a block of seven MEPs from the center-right European People’s Party, centrist Renew and right-wing ECR groups thought the offer was too good to refuse. But a seven-strong alliance of Socialists, Greens and the Left rejected the offer, arguing there was no need for extra space.
No formal vote or raising of hands was held but President Metsola’s stance meant there was a narrow majority in favor of accepting the deal.
Heidi Hautala, the Greens’ vice president, wrote in a statement the Parliament “caved in” to political pressure from the French government. “The needs assessment used to support the decision was clearly tailor-made for the deal and does not reflect the real needs of the Parliament,” she wrote.
The decision will now be referred to the budget committee, which will take a further look at the French offer — and could trigger a vote if MEPs raise objections. An overall negative vote would send the decision back to Metsola and her VPs, a Parliament spokesperson said.
The Osmose move comes after plans to turn one of the Parliament’s Strasbourg buildings into a hotel, welcomed by the French government, appear to be shelved. After Monday’s meeting, the old Konrad Adenauer building in Luxembourg is likely to be put on the market, and discussions moved forward on renovating the Paul-Henri Spaak building in Brussels, one of the people said.
All EU Parliament buildings in time end up being named after a dead European politician. That means French President Emmanuel Macron is barred from being in the running for the new Strasbourg offices — but the late Silvio Berlusconi could be a contender.
